Friday Fun Fake: iPhoney Nano

Apple has confirmed repeatedly that they’re no going to make an iPhone nano. So while that means they may or may not, it definitely means the knock-off artists are making them. Register Hardware brings us this little gem:

The Mini’s touchscreen in resistive rather than capacitive, a choice no doubt partly dictated by cost and partly by the need to use a stylus to type on the diminutive virtual Qwerty keyboard which only appears in portrait mode. That’s not to say you actually have to use the stylus – after some practice we managed to finger-type with around a 60 per cent chance of getting the right letter the first time.

Anyone racing over to get one?

[Thanks to Icebike for the tip!]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Friday Fun Fake: iPhoney Nano

iPhone Game Roundup: ExZeus, Shooter, Tamagotchi

iPhone games that came to our attention this week included ExZeus, Shooter and Tamagotchi.

Review: QuadCamera for iPhone

Takayuki Fukatsu’s apps add the ability to take multiple shots with the iPhone’s built-in camera. The finished product suffers from some limitations, mostly due to the limits of the camera itself, but for the most part, QuadCamera is a fun way to give your mobile photos a new look.

Blu-ray Licensing to Get Easier and Cheaper

AlleyInsider speculation that licensing changes to Blu-Ray could pave the way to Mac support for the High Definition drives.

A new licence will be established by mid-2009 as a "one-stop shop" for device makers. The licence will includ...

Review: OtterBox Impact Case for iPhone 3G

The OtterBox Impact Series Case for the iPhone 3G is available here at the TiPb iPhone store for only $12.95, in either black or white. It is a case that encloses your iPhone 3G in a soft rubber skin, extra rubber padding on the back and all four corners. Can a skin case for only $12.95 really stand up to the rigors of everyday use that may subject your sleek iPhone 3G to bumps, bruises and scrapes? Read on for the full review!

Case Design

The OtterBox Impact case offers a slim, form-fitting Silicone layer of protection for your iPhone 3G while still providing impact-absorbing features. The back of the case and the corners are impact-absorbing and dissipate impact away from your iPhone 3G. Additionally, the sides of the case are textured for a more secure grip. All ports, buttons, and functions are accessible through the thin Silicone layer, including an opening for the headphone jack, the mute switch, and even a cutout on the back of the case to display the shiny Apple logo proudly. Having the option of purchasing the case in black or white is also nice - if you have a white iPhone, then switch things up with the black case, and vice versa.

Performance

One of my main concerns about skin cases is that, historically, I’ve had poor luck with them. Why? Usually they stretch a bit over time and start slipping around my smartphone like a cheap oversized suit. I’m very encouraged by the OtterBox case design because although the Silicone is thin and flexible, it wraps completely around each end of the iPhone and resists unwanted stretching and shifting.

The feel and grip of the case is comfortable, particularly with the textured sides. The screen is fully accessible, as well as all of the functions, ports and buttons. The additional thickness of the Silicone along the back and corners provide additional impact from impacts and scratching. The case has a stylish look and the open round window on the back for the Apple logo is a nice touch.

 

Conclusion

The OtterBox Impact Series Case for the iPhone 3G is hard to beat for the price. The Silicone skin is protective and comfortably grippy, all ports and controls are accessible, and you have a choice of black or white, depending on your taste. The case is stylish and seems to resist the stretching and slipping that can occur over time with other skin cases. I’m happy to report that there are many positives and nothing negative to report. Especially for the price of $12.95, I can give this case a big thumbs up.

Pros

Available in both black and white

Textured sides add “grippiness”

Case wraps securely around both ends of phone

Good accessibility to ports and buttons

Only $12.95

Cons

Most skin cases can stretch out over time, and it’s uncertain if this one will do the same given enough wear and tear

TiPb Review Rating

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Review: OtterBox Impact Case for iPhone 3G

Opinion: Apple does the right thing with App Store reviews

The App Store has finally flushed old reviews written by potential non-users—a move Peter Cohen suggested back in September.

Apple purges App Store reviews from non-customers

Five months after restricting people from leaving reviews for apps they haven’t bought, Apple has deleted all existing reviews from non-customers.

TV.com’s iPhone App Allows to Stream Full Episodes of Popular TV Shows like CSI: Miami and Star Trek

Emoji on its way out of the App Store

Filed under: Open Source, iPhone, App Store, SDK

Unfortunately, the Emoji free for all may be over. Gary, from Typing Genius, e-mailed us this morning and he let us know that Apple is cracking down on Emoji activation outside of Japan. According to Gary, Apple is forbidding Emoji-only apps (Emotifun and iEmoji have both been removed from the App Store) and requiring developers for apps that do more than just Emoji (like Typing Genius -- iTunes link) to provide an Emoji-free update immediately.

In regards to Typing Genius, Gary says that:

* Existing Typing Genius users who have already unlocked emoji will not be affected when Apple remove apps from the App Store
* Emoji unlock will remain intact for users who upgrade to a newer version of Typing Genius (without the unlock) later on

Emoji on its way out of the App Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Emoji on its way out of the App Store originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Review: Night Stand for iPhone

The customizable Night Stand lets you turn your iPhone or iPod touch into a bedside alarm clock. While the alarm clock features are not without their shortcomings, the app’s interface makes this a worthwhile bedside companion.

Apple Cleanses App Store of Old, Non-Customer Reviews

Seems Emoji aren’t the only thing being scrubbed from the App Store today! MacRumors is reporting that old reviews made my users who hadn’t actually downloaded the app they were reviewing are also being removed. Apple stopped non-users from reviewing apps a while back, this is just retroactively applying the new policy to the old reviews:

Several long standing apps have seen dramatic decreases in their review counts. SEGA’s Super Monkey Ball count dropped from 4197 reviews down to 3710 while Namco’s Pac Man dropped from 395 to 122.

Most everyone involved, from developers tired of no-good-nicks trying to game the system, to users tired of sorting through gamed or off-topic reviews. Maybe this is one rejection done right?

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple Cleanses App Store of Old, Non-Customer Reviews

AirPhones turns your iPhone or touch into a wireless speaker

Filed under: Audio, iPhone, iPod touch

AirPhones is an interesting application for your iPhone or iPod touch that turns your mobile device into a set of wireless headphones. The idea is similar to Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil, but instead of routing audio from your Mac to an Airport Express, AirPhones sends your Mac's audio to your iPhone or touch connected to the same WiFi network.

For this to work you have to install the free Mac server application. It adds an additional output device to your Sound preferences pane. Once that's installed on your Mac you'll also need the mobile application (iTunes link) installed on your iPhone or iPod touch. After they're connected through the same network, your handheld should play your Mac's sound output.

This actually strikes me as a great idea. I spend a lot of time at my work desk listening to music through headphones and I inevitably get tangled up in the cord. My main concern, I suppose, would be running down my iPhone's battery, but that may be worth it to get rid of that cord.

AirPhone is $4.99 from the iTunes Store. You'll also need to download the server application from smashart. Unfortunately, the server app is Intel only, but they're promising both a Universal binary and a Windows version in the future.

[via 9 to 5 Mac]

AirPhones turns your iPhone or touch into a wireless speaker originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

AirPhones turns your iPhone or touch into a wireless speaker originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple Taking Down Emoji-Enabling Apps (or Making them Remove the Feature)

Lots (and lots) of you have become smitten with Emoji, the cute, extra smiley-faces that come to us from Japan and work quite well on the iPhone. That is to say, they work quite well if you’ve hacked them on or downloaded one of the several apps that turns them on on-the-sly.

Sadly, that latter option is no longer going to be available. Ars Technica is reporting that Apple has issued a global take-down notice on any app that enables Emoji on non-Japanese iPhones. More specifically, they’ve told developers with apps that enable it to immediately remove that functionality:

Existing applications that offer Emoji enabling beyond their base functionality have been ordered to remove Emoji support. Fung told us that Apple has required an immediate update to his Typing Genius program with the Emoji support removed. This same order appears to have gone out to all developers whose App Store marketing text mentions an Emoji feature.

The good news is that if you’ve already installed one of these apps or otherwise enabled Emoji, the little guys should still work just fine for you — that is, until Apple decided to use their best-of-class software updating system for the iPhone to push out a new ROM that, one assumes, will break it.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple Taking Down Emoji-Enabling Apps (or Making them Remove the Feature)

DataViz Updates on DocsToGo Document Editing on the iPhone

DataViz just pushed out an email update on the current status of their upcoming iPhone document editing software, DocsToGo (which Dieter sneaked a peak at during Mobile World Congress). As most of us on TiPb came to the iPhone from other platforms, such as Palm, we’re all not only familiar with DocsToGo, but big fans of the mobile productivity suite. Needless to say, we’ve been waiting for this functionality to hit the iPhone for a (long!) while now:

We wanted to let you all know that Documents To Go is still on track to be released in the second quarter of 2009. We’d also like to give you a look at a few screenshots so you can get a better feel for what we’re up to.

They promise more updates on more features to come.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

DataViz Updates on DocsToGo Document Editing on the iPhone

Friday Fun Video: BlackBerry Takes a Non-Subtle Shot at Apple

Wow, the Storm launching to a buggy, bashed start must really have bothered the marketing drones at RIM, especially when the iPhone 3G outsold in its second quarter outsold the Storm in its debut by almost 2 to 1… How else can we explain this cute little “shot” just taken at Apple?

Of course, we all know in the real world the Apple would have spun around, Kung-Fu style, and caught RIM’s little BerryBullet in it’s bitten-out teeth. Then… Skeedoosh! Massive shock-wave leveling everything this side of Waterloo.

Seriously though, why would anyone end any ad for a touch-screen device by saying “no one can touch it”, especially after all the complaints about this particular implementation’s usability…?

Still, hung-over as we are from the CrackBerry birthday bash, we’ll link up the romanticized little RIM version so you can lend us your thoughts…

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Friday Fun Video: BlackBerry Takes a Non-Subtle Shot at Apple

Apple cracks down on emoji apps

Apple is removing apps that unlock emoji, emoticons commonly used in Japan, from the App Store.

Review: What The Font for iPhone

This font finder has some limitations, mostly related to the iPhone’s built-in camera. But it’s still a worthwhile tool if you find yourself with a desire to identify fonts when you’re out and about.

Print & Share for iPhone prints and shares

Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Another day, another interesting iPhone/iPod touch application. Print & Share [App Store link], released a week ago, lets you print emails, mail attachments, photos, documents, contacts and web pages from your iPhone to your local printer. This works over a wireless network quite seamlessly, and can also be set up to work over the Internet if you are familiar with setting up routers and firewalls for outside access. The developer provides some help on how to do this, and has 24-hour help desk support.

The $6.99US app requires that you run a print server on your Mac or PC. The server software is a free download from the developer. System requirements are Tiger or Leopard on the Mac side; a Windows PC requires XP/Vista and may require some Windows configuration.

On the iPhone side, you need to give the app your basic email information (user names, password, incoming server info) and you're pretty much ready to go.

Read on for more, or check the gallery...

Continue reading Print & Share for iPhone prints and shares

Print & Share for iPhone prints and shares originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Print & Share for iPhone prints and shares originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zen Bound arrives on the iPhone

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Odds and ends, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

This one's impressive -- Zen Bound originally started out as Zen Bondage, a physics game/sandbox where the goal was to wrap a rope around a 3D shape or object. The game has just recently been ported to the iPhone, and in the process has actually been improved -- the graphics look sharper and the iPhone's multitouch controls really add to the tactile experience.

As a "game," it might be questionable -- it looks like there's a lot of fudging in terms of whether or not the rope has "covered" the object, and the scoring system itself is more or less tossed in as just a reason to get you to interact with the objects. But as an app, and a demonstration of the kinds of interactivity that can be exclusive to a device like the iPhone, it comes highly recommended.

Zen Bound is available on the App Store now for $4.99.

Zen Bound arrives on the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Zen Bound arrives on the iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple Waves Bye Bye to the uSirius StarPlayr App for iPhone

Lately I have been the bearer of bad news. First it was Apple rejecting the official South Park application and now they’re breaking our hearts once more and waving bye bye to Howard Stern and Sirius XM by rejecting the uSirius StarPlayr application that we previously told you was due to be in the App Store in a few short weeks. Yes this is a very sad day, as I am a huge Howard Stern fan like many of you.

“As of yesterday, the uSirius StarPlayr Application for iPhone still had a status of “In Review” with Apple. Late last night, we became aware that the application could not be approved at this time. As fans, we are committed to continuing to work with all parties involved as necessary in any capacity required to see this product to market. It is our goal, as it has always been, to release this application at as low of a price point as possible, if not free of charge.”

With no real reason given why this application was rejected, we must sadly move on. You really have to wonder what exactly made Apple reject this application. Surely it was not Sirius XM as Howard himself loved the idea and was ready to pick up an iPhone just for this application.

Apple, why did you reject this one? This was an application that I been patiently waiting for… oh so much. This news will surely disappoint Howard and many of the other Sirius XM iPhone owners out there.

Hopefully, we will see this application available on Cydia sooner rather than later.

[Thanks to Darren for the tip!]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Apple Waves Bye Bye to the uSirius StarPlayr App for iPhone